My SoCalled Continuation
by Degrassi Rules8
Summary: My continuation of the short-spanned series' final season that, in my opinion, should have resulted in a long-running successful show.


We came back at around 9:30. Jordan seemed distracted the whole time, and so did i. And I was distracted. He probably knew that too. He put the car in park and leaned back in his seat. He rested his head and closed his eyes, mumbling something himself. Despite knowing the other side to him, I still enjoyed watching him. I held my smile to a decent and mild frown, for I knew I wasn't smiling at the real Jordan, but that I was in fact smiling at the one person I'd never think I'd be smiling at. He finaly looked over at me with sorry blue eyes. It was as if he knew that…I knew.

I sat still the whole time, looking back at him. I focused on my breathing, in and out, but each time I did, I couldn't help but feel this annoying lump forming in my throat and the circus my stomach was putting on and one that I refused to watch. I had to say something, anything, but what?

"So, um," he started. I was saved, and as a result, I closed my eyes and breathed a little easier. The bicycle he was sitting on was still a faint picture in my mind, getting smaller and smaller in the mirror as we drove away. "Nice night out, isn't it?" He focused his attention at the bleak sky and the shadowy moon. I wonder if he wrote that line, too. I didn't look up with him and then he looked back at me, his mouth open just a little. He reached a little in front of me. I was thinking that he was going to pen the door for me, but he didn't. instead, he pushed back my seat. "There. Relax a little."

But I didn't because I couldn't, even though I did let myself fall back into the seat. I had this weird sense that I was somewhere far away from home for a split second, but I realized his car was parked right in front of my house, and dad and mom were probably watching. And him. I blinked quickly and sighed out loud. I didn't know what to say at this point to him, but I had so much to say that the same time. I wanted to yell and scream at Jordan to not telling me how he truly felt and that he let Brian write what he assumed was on Jordan's mind.

I felt a familiar hand on my leg felt it stroking it up and down. I focused on the dark sky, trying to count the stars and the many ways I could face him again. But before I could reach ten stars, his hand moved up to my shoulder and he leaned in. the last thing I saw was his face, that apprehensive but wanting expression. I moved away and he ended up kissing my cheek. I closed my eyes and saw his face again. His face of many flaws, the one that girls didn't exactly fall head over heels for. The one I fell for once, but vowed over and over to never fall for again. But I am. Right now. As he was kissing me, I saw Brian with closed eyes. I refused to visualize him and I couldn't understand why I was, but I was. I could never get because of plain-old Angela. I tried remembering those letters he gave Jordan's, but it sounded perfect coming from Brian's. But I just couldn't, and I wouldn't, and to make him know that, I kissed him harder.

I opened my eyes and realized who I was really kissing. I pushed him off of me and ran my fingers through my hair, sitting up and looking around nervously. I hugged my jacket a little closer to me. He could've been watching me, spying on me, just as he did when he and Rayanne hooked up. I started opening the car door. "I've gotta go."

"Wait."

I sat down a little into the chair, looking at my feet, then the glove compartment, and then the steering wheel, where his hands were at 10 and 2.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked sincerely and quietly, looking at his own hands. "Because I know something's bugging you."

I stared at him. I'm thinking about the many ways you've loved me, but also the numerous ways you've hurt me. I'm thinking about the letter you wrote me that you didn't write. It was like you copied someone's homework or something and passed it in to me as you own for some kind of credit. I guess this is how teachers feel cheated by their students. But I'm also thinking about the fact that I have a curfew.

"Nothing is bugging me."

He looked down and bit his lip, the wind picking up and blowing his hair slightly. "You know, don't you?"

My eyes widened and I muttered, "Know what?"

He looked at me and straightened up. "So you don't know."

"Know what, Jordan?" I couldn't believe how irritated and impatient I was getting, even when I knew the answer. But I just needed to hear him say it to me. Just say it. "That you were taking advantage of people this entire time?"

"What people?"

"Of c'mon. I can't believe it," I found myself laughing a bit and biting my lip. "You took advantage of Rayanne, me…you took advantage of Brian."

My heart sank. I fell back in the space between the window and the chair, the space between yesterday and today. I studied the pavement I walked on of 16 years.

"I never took advantage of him," he explained. I focused on the road in front of us the headlights of a distant car. "I didn't ask him to write that last letter."

Last letter. The most romantic letter I had ever read. "But you did ask him to write the first two." My voice was surprisingly calm and sullen. "Why?" I asked more quietly, almost a mere squeak. I saw and felt that a teardrop fell onto my lap once I blinked back.

"Why?"

"Yes! Why weren't you able to think your yourself?!" I just exploded out of nowhere, but I really needed that answer.

"I am able to think for myself."

"I'm sure you are. You were able to think of a way to take Rayanne away from me."

"What, but I thought you two were over that--"

"That's beside the point." I stared at him long and hard, my eyes welling right in front of him and I hated myself for it.

He reached into his pocket to take out a crumpled ball of paper. He squeezed it in one hand and unfolded it with both.

"Oh what—another one?" I shook my head in disbelief but at the same time, I didn't take my eyes off of him. The only sounds now were the crumpling of paper and my sporadic sniffs. I couldn't take it and I started to get out of the car.

"Wait!" he started and handed the piece of paper to me slowly. "You might want to read this." I turned around halfway. "This is the real me." He paused in thought, licking his lips once. "This is how I really feel," he finished, looking down at the letter he extended for me to take. Now I had all the more reason not to believe him: lack of eye contact. He pushed the letter a little more towards me. "I've been meaning to give it to you all night, but I just couldn't."

To my surprise, I took it from him and held it close to my face:

'dear angella…"

And that was all I had read. This must have been another joke. Brian already tricked me into believing it was from Jordan by spelling my name with two 'l's.

"I cannot believe you would, like, think I'd be stupid enough to fall for one of these again." I hated it. I hated it when I would yell like an annoying little kid.

"Please. Just read it." His voice grew soft and his expression remained sincere, genuine. I studied him a little longer and read the first line:

'I didn't know wehre to start, but I'll start here.'

My hand reached for the door handle and I got out. One hand reached for my free one and he said sternly, "promise me you'll read it."

I chose not to say anything and just closed the door. I started towards the house and then stopped in the middle of the pathway once I heard the familiar sound of his car revving up and accelerating down the familiar street. All that was left was the exhaust, a cloud of white smoke climbing up into the night sky.

"So, how was the ride?"

I would have liked it if that question were asked by mom or dad. I'd give anything to hear it from Danielle. But it wasn't. It was that voice again. That whiny yet mature voice. "Fine," I said sternly, now really reading the letter as if I were completely interested.

I heard him coming nearer towards me, the wheels of his bike hitting the crisp leaves on the grass. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I replied quietly.

"What are you looking at?"

I paused. I didn't want him to know, but I couldn't lie. Not after what he did. "Just a letter."

"Really?" I could sense his anxiety a mile away straining my ears to hear that nervous gulp. "What's it about?"

I looked up at him immediately, in disbelief. He jumped and waved his arms around.

"I mean, not trying to seem nosy or, like, rude."

"Well, you probably already know," I told him.

"Why's that?" he asked sternly. "Because it's from Jordan?"

I tilted my head up a little more, pursing my lips together, trying not to cry and show him my weakness. I opened my mouth, focusing on my breath and how it rose up with the night wind.

"I didn't write every single letter, okay?" He started and then added a little more quietly, "if that's what you're worried about."

I always hated the way Brian knew everything about everything, and above everything, everything about me.

"So, are you gonna tell me what that letter says?"

I cast my eyes on his tall shadow on the dimly-lit watered grass. I started and began holding the paper up to the light, reading it out loud: "I didn't know wehre to start, but I'll start here. Ever sence I met you, my life has chnaged. Everyhting I think and do is different. And everyhting I say is no longer a familier language to me. I just wanted you to know, thought, that what I am writeing here is from my own pen, my own hands, and my own mind. No one else's. You can still tell yourself that I'm still lieing, that this is what Brian is thinking instead, but I can tell you that you're wrong. This is what I think."

I stopped at the very end of punctuation and took a deep breath. "Tell me you wrote that."

A silenced moment. "I can't." He breathed. "Because I didn't."

I held my breath, as fear that the next breath would give every secret, every promise, away. I was trying to believe the both of them. He came up closer to me. "But you wrote those other letters."

"Those other letters were dumb. I didn't mean for you or for anyone to read them."

"But I found out, okay? I read them."

"Right. Right. You did." He paused. "And there's like, no possible way to reverse that."

"Yeah, there is."

Brian looked confused. "How?"

"Just tell me you didn't write those words. TELL ME they were from Jordan Catalano."

"Angela, I can't SAY that because it's not the truth."

"Yes you can!"

"How can I possibly let someone else live the words I wrote?" Brian asked. "It's like losing my identity or something."

I paused and I was about to regret the next thing I was going to say. So I took a deep breath. "Did you really mean those words?" Those very words that can turn on you in an instant. The bike squeaked a little from his movement and now he was breathing down my neck, and I bet he didn't even know as he continued to do so.

"Yeah." Or maybe he did know. But the way he whispered it gave me the chills. I kept my eyes on the letter I held, crumpling it in the middle of my index and forefinger. "I still, like, do."

A quick flash of headlights fell onto the lawn and then stopped in front. I heard a door open and then close. "Angela, hey, you left this in the car."

I turned slowly, my fingers in my mouth and my head bent down towards the cracks on the ground. I gazed up slowly at Jordan and forced myself to hold it this time. Because this time required so much effort. I looked at Brian momentarily, who had one foot on the pedal and the other on the grass, keeping steady. Both his hands were on the handlebars, him hunched over studying my face as this was the first time I had faced him every since that long stare out the car window during the moment of discovery. Jordan moved a little in the corner of my eye and he held out my mitten that had fallen out of my pocket.

"Let's go," he said, and he linked hands with mine and walked with me.


End file.
